This document relates to wireless communication systems, apparatuses, and techniques.
Wireless communication systems and apparatuses use electromagnetic waves to communicate with fixed and mobile wireless communication devices, e.g., mobile wireless phones and laptop computers with wireless communication cards, that are located within cells of coverage areas of the systems. Wireless communication equipment such as base stations can be spatially distributed to provide radio coverage in one or more geographic service areas. A base station can provide coverage in one or more radio cells. Depending on the size and capacity, a cell may be categorized as a macro-cell, micro-cell, pico-cell, or femto-cell. The base stations can include directional antennas to divide each cell into different cell sectors where each antenna covers one sector. This sectorization of a cell increases the communication capacity of the system.
Various wireless communication systems can include a network of one or more base stations to communicate with one or more wireless devices such as a mobile device, cell phone, wireless card, mobile station (MS), user equipment (UE), access terminal (AT), or subscriber station (SS). A base station can be referred to as an access point (AP) or access network (AN) or can be included as part of an access network. Further, a wireless communication system can include one or more core networks to control one or more base stations.
In some wireless communication networks, the base stations may be configured in a multi-tier configuration. For example, a base station may be placed in a radio cell of another base station to provide radio coverage of a small section of the radio cell. In this case, the larger cell can be considered as a macro-cell because another base station is located within the macro-cell region and the smaller cell inside the macro-cell can be considered a micro-cell. This macro-cell/micro-cell configuration can expand the radio coverage of the network and can increase the radio frequency bands and thus the communication capacity of the network. A macro-cell can include one or more micro-cells depending on the needs for radio coverage in that macro-cell. A macro-cell base station is an example of a base station that provides wireless coverage in a macro-cell. Some wireless communication systems can operate in a tiered base station configuration with multiple pico-cells. Some wireless communication systems can operate in a tiered base station configuration with multiple femto-cells.
A femto-cell can provide a smaller sized cell coverage area. A femto-cell can offer an alternative wireless service option to various locations such as home and business locations. A base station such as a femto-cell access point (FAP) provides wireless service to mobile stations based on one or more wireless air link technologies. A FAP such as a femto-cell base station is an example of a base station that provides wireless coverage in a femto-cell. Various examples of wireless air link technologies include Code division Multiple Access (CDMA) such as CDMA2000 1x, High Rate Packet Data (HRPD), evolved HRPD (eHRPD), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN), Long-Term Evolution (LTE), and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX). Various examples of wireless technology standards bodies include 3GPP, 3GPP2, and IEEE 802.16.
A FAP can use wired or wireless broadband connection at home or business, such as those provided by Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), cable modem, fiber, wireless microwave, WiMAX technologies, as the backhaul connection for connecting the FAP to an operator's core network equipment. When a wireless device enters a femto-cell coverage area, the wireless device can communicate with a FAP over a wireless connection and can continue to receive services via the broadband backhaul connection to the operator's core network equipment.